Sweden storms back to stun Russians in overtime

2012 world junior hockey championship: Sweden storms back to stun Russa in overtime

By Allen Cameron

There were New Year’s Eve fireworks inside Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome at the end of the Russia-Sweden game in the IIHF world junior hockey championship, but they had to be delayed.

Truth be told, there were more than enough fireworks in the third period of Saturday’s memorable round-robin curtain-dropper to make up for the delay.

Trailing 3-0 through 40 minutes in the battle to decide top spot in Pool A and a bye to Tuesday’s semifinal, Sweden — chasing its first world junior gold medal in 30 years — rallied to tie the game with just 39 seconds left in regulation on Max Friberg’s tourney-leading seventh goal.

And 2:44 into overtime, Joakim Nordstrom deflected a point shot from Patrik Nemeth past brilliant Russian goaltender Andrei Vasilevski for the game-winner.

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As a result, Sweden advances to the semi to await the winner of Finland-Slovakia, while the defending champion Russians drop into Monday’s quarter-final at the Saddledome against the Czech Republic; the winner of which will take on Canada in the other semi on Tuesday.

“I think the last two periods we played good hockey, in a hard situation in a hard game against a really good team,” said Swedish coach Roger Ronnberg. “I’m impressed with the character of the team.”

It was shown often on Saturday as the Russians carried the play early, taking a 3-0 lead before the game was 15 minutes old on goals seven seconds apart from Ignat Zemchenko, after a Swedish giveaway, and Yaroslav Kosov, followed by Ivan Telegin’s short-handed breakaway.

The Swedes had a goal waved off in the opening frame, and were stonewalled repeatedly in the second period by Vasilevski, who made 51 saves on the night.

The comeback started in the third; the Swedes were finally rewarded as goals by Edmonton first-round pick Oscar Klefbom and Rickard Rakell (a bizarre goal that bounced in off a Russian player) cut the lead to one.

And with just 40 seconds to play, Friberg tied it to send it into extra time and set the stage for Nordstrom’s game-winner, which had to stand up to a video review to ensure it wasn’t a high stick.

“We believed in ourselves that we could turn this thing around,” said Friberg, a fifth-round pick by Anaheim last June. “Even after the second period we knew that we still had a good chance to turn it around. Just keep going, keep going, make the Russians tired, and never stop trying. That was the thing.”

Gustaffson struggled early, got better as the game went on, and made his finest save with less than two minutes to play when Russian captain Yevgeni Kuznetsov had a clean breakaway, only to have Gustaffson rob him with a pad save.

The Swedes were 0-for-7 on the power play.

“Life goes on,” muttered Kuznetsov through an interpreter. “The game is behind us. It was the same last year, we came up from third place (to win the gold). We have to play. It’s pretty disappointing; the (officiating) calls were to the opposite side. We played pretty much the whole game four-on-five. I was surprised we never played three-on-five. It should have been better calls.”

That’s one way of looking at it; Friberg, of course, had a different viewpoint.

“I think the Russians got tired and had to hook us or trip us and do those kind of things,” he said. “I think the calls were fair.

“Of course we knew that we had more energy than the Russians (going into overtime), so we were positive. We believed we could win.”

Earlier Saturday, the Czech Republic followed up its emotionally charged win against the United States with a 4-0 loss to Finland at Rexall Place in Edmonton.

Alex Ruuttu, on the power play, Miro Aaltonen, Joonas Donskoi and Teemu Pulkkinen each scored once and Sami Aittokallio made 36 saves for the shutout as Finland (3-1) locked up second place in Group B with its third straight win.

Czech goaltender Petr Mrazek, who made 52 saves in Friday’s 5-2 victory over the U.S., was solid in goal, but didn’t get the offensive support this time around. He finished with 24 saves as the Czechs dropped to third in the pool.

“(Friday) night was certainly very draining emotionally,” said Czech assistant coach Jiri Fischer. “For most of the guys this is really the first time playing in front of 16,000 people on their side and winning the game against (the) U.S. and that basically clinched us to advance (to the medal round).

“It wasn’t to easy to have the same head on the shoulders as it was (Friday) for the game.”

Discipline problems once again haunted the undermanned Czech Republic. While Finland went a disappointing 1-for-8 with the man advantage, the constant pressure wore down the Czechs as they played without forward Jakub Culek and defenceman David Musil, both sidelined with injuries suffered against the Americans.

Ruuttu opened the scoring one minute after Radek Faksa was sent off for tripping midway through the first period. Finnish captain Mikael Granlund found Ruuttu with a tremendous cross-crease pass and he beat Mrazek at 11:42 for his second goal of the tournament.

Less than five minutes later, Aaltonen potted his first of the tournament to push the lead to 2-0.

Donskoi, at 14:17 of the second, and Pulkkinen, three minutes into the third, rounded out the scoring for the Finns, who were outshot 36-28.

“If you win the games the confidence is growing and growing,” said Finnish coach Raimo Helminen. “I hope it keeps going.”

Next up for Finland is a quarter-final date Monday night with Slovakia, which finished third in Group A thanks to its 6-4 comeback victory Saturday against Switzerland at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.

Matus Chovan, with his third of the game, Tomas Matousek, Martin Marincin and Martin Gernat scored in a four-and-a-half-minute span in the third period for Slovakia (2-2) not long after Tanner Richard had given Switzerland a 4-2 lead just 47 seconds into the frame.

Joel Vermin, with two, and Sven Andrighetto also scored for the Swiss (1-2-1), who will meet Denmark when the relegation round begins Monday.